Towards the heart of the fortress
by Calvo
Summary: A local warlord has set his sights on the Hidden Leaf, so the fifth sends our favourite team to dramatically intervene. And now it appears they've reached the final hurdle. NaruHina, SasuSaku.
1. A quick escape

Disclaimer – I don't own Naruto, all characters from the show belong to their respective owners. All other characters that come in were thought up by me, although I'll probably borrow 'inspiration' from elsewhere in naming them. On with it.  
  
Chapter 1  
  
"Kage Bunshin no jutsu!"  
  
And all hell breaks loose. A dozen Naruto's fill up the castle walkway, momentarily surprising their assailant.  
  
"Shadow clones. An impressive jutsu for one such as yourself. Still, it is hardly enough to defeat me."  
  
The Naruto's scream their defiance, immediately launching themselves into the air and whipping out kunai's from their holsters. A few instantaneously fling them towards the masked figure who dodges with contemptuous ease. They then hurry to join their compatriots who have closed to melee range.  
  
"The rest of you guys, get out of here quickly while I distract him. Now!" screams the real Naruto from somewhere in the pack.  
  
"But Naruto," protests Sakura, "you don't stand a chance!"  
  
"Shut up and go! I'll take care of this moron. After all, I'm the greatest ninja who ever lived, Uzamaki Naruto!"  
  
Sakura looks back at the mass melee and looks as though she is about to shout a reply, but Sasuke grunts and pushes her down the corridor.  
  
"He said go, Sakura."  
  
Sakura stumbles a few steps down the corridor, turns back to look at Sasuke who nods at her and then takes off past her.  
  
"You guys take the rear," yells Sasuke to three standing figures. They nod as they fall in line. Just before the group of five round the corner, one glances back at the melee which is still proceeding at full pace. The figure utters a single word.  
  
"Naruto-kun..."  
  
"So what do you plan to do now kid? There's no way you're getting out of here alive"  
  
"Pfft," reply a dozen Naruto's as they crowd around to press the attack, with disastrous results. One clone launches a loose punch towards the ninja, and it is quickly grabbed and used as a human cricket bat on the remaining Naruto's. The clones are quickly dispersed with a single circular blow and crash into several places in the wall. They quickly disappear in a puff of smoke leaving only one Naruto remaining. The one in the unknown ninja's hand.  
  
"Heh. That was easier than I expected," the man says as he hurls Naruto into the wall and with his spare hand, flings three kunai straight at him.  
  
In slow motion, the kunai's arc towards their intended target, which lies dazed against a stone wall. Impact occurs, and Naruto disappears in a puff of smoke.  
  
"Damn. That was a shadow clone as well... The real one can't have gotten far. I can still sense his chakra."  
  
Meanwhile, several corridors away, Shino glances over his back and is somewhat disturbed to find that Hinata is not where he expected.  
  
"Hinata has fallen behind."  
  
"There's no time to worry about her," yells Sasuke from the front. "She can't be that far behind."  
  
"Byakugan," whispers Hinata and she looks through the corner of the wall to examine the battle. She instantly sees what has happened and waits in anticipation of Naruto's next move.  
  
It's not a long wait, because as soon as the ninja passes a suit of armour, it raises it's halberd and swings it towards the back of the ninja's head. The flat of the blade connects with his head, sending him sprawling. As soon as he flips up, Naruto pops back to normal.  
  
"I thought you said this was easy for you," Naruto taunts, "but it looks like you've got problems"  
  
Naruto grins as he hurls two shuriken towards his assailant, who dodges awkwardly. Naruto hasn't wasted any time however and was following his shurikens as fast as he could. The off balance ninja is extremely easy to hit for Naruto, who crunches him in the face with his fist.  
  
The unknown ninja flips to his feet and grins. With a loud pop, he disappears.  
  
"Oh please," says a voice from behind Naruto, "you thought I didn't see that? While you were busy transforming into the armour under the cover of your clones, I made my own."  
  
Naruto's eyes widen and he then is sent flying down the length of the corridor by a kick to the back of the head. He crashes into the wall next to Hinata, who gasps slightly and looks back through the wall to see the mystery shinobi closing the distance between himself and the prone Naruto. Hinata reaches into her belt bag. She withdraws a kunai and holds it ready in a throwing position. As soon as the ninja emerges from behind the wall, ready to finish off the dazed Naruto, she hurls the kunai.  
  
Once again, in a slow motion, a kunai arcs towards the mystery shinobi. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots it, but is too committed to his attack to be able to dodge or block it. His eyes widen in surprise and remain that way for the rest of his life, as it is quickly extinguished when the kunai pierces his throat and nails him to the wall opposite the determined girl.  
  
Naruto groans as he pulls himself up, having not seen what happened in the second he was out for. He looks up and shakes his head in an attempt to clear his double vision and then he finally notices the dead ninja to his right. Judging the angle that the kunai was thrown from, he turns towards the thrower and his savior...  
  
"Hinata, I had him right where I wanted him! I was going to do this," and Naruto throws a punch into the air, "and then this," Naruto follows his punch with a quick kick, "and finish with this," Naruto throws himself into a complicated spinning maneuver and ends up with his ass on the floor, groaning yet again.  
  
It would certainly appear that Naruto was back to his normal self.  
  
"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun."  
  
"Never mind, we'd better catch up to the others."  
  
"..."  
  
Both kids dash off after their teammates. Several corridors later, Naruto's grin slides off his face and he turns to Hinata.  
  
"Look, sorry about that. If you weren't there I'd be in a lot of trouble. So uhh..."  
  
Naruto scratches the back of his head and grins again.  
  
"Thanks a heap!"  
  
Hinata can do nothing but blush at the praise handed out to her.  
  
"It was nothing, Naruto-kun."  
  
An hour later, several kilometers into the forest surrounding the dark castle, Hinata and Naruto emerge into a clearing. Naruto looks around wildly, scanning the forest.  
  
"They said the meeting place was here. Where are they?" asks the impatient blonde ninja.  
  
Shazbot. I totally forgot there was a password involved  
  
"Uhh... Hinata...?"  
  
Hinata giggles slightly as she looks at the face of her now somewhat deep in thought crush.  
  
"It's strawberry jam"  
  
Naruto's eyes widen as the words pass over his ears. He begins to laugh.  
  
"Of course I knew that! I was just testing you"  
  
The other members from both team seven and eight drop silently out of the trees. Having observed the whole thing, they all came to the conclusion that this was the real Naruto and Hinata. After all, Naruto will be Naruto.  
  
"So," begins Naruto. "Just remind me how we got into this mess again"  
  
It began several days ago, when team seven and team eight were called together for a special mission. It was a B rank mission, and most of the chuunins were on other missions, so it was decided that this mission be taken by a mixture of the remaining chuunins and genins. Of course, the remaining chuunins just happened to be Naruto, Sasuke and Shino, so their teams were sent.  
  
The mission involved information gathering from a nearby warlord's fortress who was getting more and more ambitious by the day. The leaders of leaf village decided that in the interests of security, they would attempt to ascertain his plans.  
  
So the two teams left and after two days of traveling without any incidents reach a point six or so kilometers from the castle wall, where the plan is made. It is eventually decided that team 7 will create a distraction at the front gate with Naruto's kage bunshin, and while the guards are distracted, team 8 will sneak into the compound and gather as much information as they can.  
  
The initial part of the plan goes off without a hitch, as Naruto is quite adept at making a fair bit of noise, and besides, with the amount of shadow clones he's made, an entire army may as well have been trying to force their way through the front gate. Team 8 quickly slip over the wall and begin searching for information.  
  
Within ten minutes, Naruto has forced his way into the inside of the castle, where he is joined by Sakura and Sasuke. Inside, they run up against slightly more experienced enemies, but it doesn't appear to slow down team 7 in their noise making and distraction ploy.  
  
25 minutes into the fray, however, and Sasuke hears a scream through his headset. Pausing for a second, he asks what the problem is, and Shino explains that they've run into a ninja that wasn't fooled by Naruto's little display, and judging by his skills, he's at jounin level.  
  
He then hastily goes on to explain that the jounin is only toying with them at the moment, and they might be able to get out with a little help. Sasuke agrees to break off their distraction and come to help. He quickly explains the situation to one of Naruto's clones and they quickly finish the fight they're involved in and disappear.  
  
Team 7 quickly make their way to team 8's fight and temporarily catch the jounin off guard. Sasuke makes use of his grand fireball jutsu to put the jounin on the back foot and both teams attempt to bugger off as fast as possible. Unfortunately for them, chakra whips out from the smoke of the grand fireball and sends tremors through the castle floor, throwing both teams off balance.  
  
By the time they've recovered, the jounin is back in view and appears to have the advantage. And that's when Naruto used his kage bunshin no jutsu.  
  
"We don't have time for that, Naruto," berates Sakura. "The enemy is bound to be out looking for us. We've got to get some distance on them quickly."  
  
"Indeed," agrees Shino. "Is everyone fit enough to run until sunset?"  
  
A chorus of affirmative answers is received from everyone else, and they all leap to the trees, hightailing it as fast as they can, while keeping an eye out for potential dangers. 


	2. A night in the dark

Disclaimer – See the first chapter.  A/N Having troubles sorting out dastardly ff.net formatting.

Chapter 2

Several hours later, the sun lowers itself below the horizon and Sasuke calls the group to a halt in a rather dense thicket.

"How far do you think we've put on the castle?"

Akamaru barks and Kiba turns to listen carefully

"Akamaru calls it as being about thirty kilometers."

"I would have liked a little bit more," says Sasuke, "but it looks like we need to rest up a bit."

Shino inclines his head in a nod.  "We may as well stay in this thicket and try to be discreet.  We should set watches, as our pursuers are not likely to stop for the night."

"Yeah," replies Sasuke.  "Three watches, of two people each.  This is how we'll team up.  Kiba and Shino.  Naruto and Hinata.  Sakura and I."

Sakura's eyes float into the back of her head.

"Spending part of the night alone with Sasuke…  How romantic," she sighs.

Sasuke squints at her.  "Hardly.  I chose these teams like this so that at least one person on each team has the ability to work well in the dark.  Akamaru, my sharigan and Hinata's byakugan.  And I'm only with you because Naruto would get in my way."

Naruto fumes furiously.  "Yeah right!  You're just afraid you'll get in my way."

"Whatever."

Naruto hmphs like a petulant child and turns away.  Hinata looks at him in concern.

"Please don't let it get to you Naruto-kun."

"Anyway," continues Sasuke, now that everyone's had their little whinge or swoon, "to decide on when our watches are going to be, lets play paper scissors, rock."

Instantly Naruto whips around with a fist out.  "Let me do this pleeeease Hinata?  I won't lose," he pleads desperately.

Hinata blushes and points her fingers together in front of her face.

"I don't mind, Naruto-kun"

"Awesome!  Is everyone ready?"

Sasuke and Kiba nod, and all three put their fists into the middle of the circle.

"Paper, scissors, rock!"  The three chant, before bringing their fists down in the middle of the circle.

Naruto falls over backwards, his immobile form slamming into the ground.  Eventually his mouth creaks open…

"I lost?"

"Whatever.  Anyway, you've got the middle watch.  We'll go first and Kiba and Shino have the last one."

"Fine!  I like middle watch the best anyway!"

Sometime around eleven o'clock, Naruto is gently shaken awake by Hinata.  He pulls a blanket off the top of him and silently drags himself off a makeshift mattress of leaves.

"I hate the middle watch," Naruto groans as he rubs his eyes.

"Naruto-kun, are you ready?"

Naruto can only nod mutely, and he leaps into the trees, misjudges his landing and just about falls off their temporary lookout.  He saves himself by channeling chakra into his feet and swinging himself around the branch once, before ending up in a crouching position a couple of metres away from Sasuke and Sakura, who are both concentrating hard.  Through bleary eyes, Naruto notices the sharingan in Sasuke's eyes.  

Hinata lands silently next to him, interrupting what passes for thought in Naruto's mind.  For once, however, Hinata doesn't blush and look away.  She doesn't even look at Naruto and walks down the branch and exchanges a few words with Sasuke and Sakura.  They then leap off the branch and now Hinata looks at Naruto, her blush hidden by the dark shadows she's concealed in.  She beckons to him and he scampers along the branch, hiding himself in the same area where Hinata is.

"So what's the plan?"

Naruto bends in closer to Hinata to hear her reply better, causing her to blush even more.  Unsurprisingly, she begins to stammer.

"Umm…  W-well, I thought I'd use my byakugan to watch and you can use your other senses to help me."

Naruto gaks.  How am I supposed to use my other senses?  I haven't need to track before

"Too easy for an incredible ninja like me!  But we'd better keep quiet from now on, or else you might disturb me," he whispers, waving a finger admonishingly under her nose.

"I - I'm sorry Naruto-kun.  Just one last thing."

Hinata quickly performs a simple set of seals, and finishes off with a soft whisper.  "Byakugan"

Naruto nods and then closes his eyes.  I can't rely on my eyes for this.  Perhaps if I channel some chakra into my ears and concentrate, I'll be able to this better

Naruto does this and lays his head down on the branch, listening to the sounds of the forest through one ear and feeling the vibrations of the forest through his other ear, which is firmly pressed to the branch.

While Naruto is attempting to train his senses, Hinata is gazing around silently, although her mind is wandering all over the place.

Naruto-kun is strong.  He never admits that he can't do something.  He is loud, gruff and unruly but he doesn't have a bad bone in his body.  Is this what makes me like him?  I don't think it's just that.  He has some sort of positive effect on people

Hinata's gaze lingers on the prone form of Naruto for a second before continuing it's sweep through the trees.

Like when I fought in the prelims against Neji.  I began to feel stronger and overcame my fears… and less than six hours ago, when I killed a jounin ninja to save him

Hinata looks at Naruto again, then continues her constant vigilance of the area.

After about twenty minutes, Naruto has begun to recognise the natural rhythm of the forest and can now feel the breathing of his comrades below him as they sleep.

Wow.  This feels so calm and peaceful.  Who would've thought being quiet would feel so good?

The two continue their vigil for well over an hour and a half, before Naruto feels something out of tune with the forest's natural melody.  A discordant note, a note to shatter the serenity.  He attempts to pinpoint the source of the disruption and find it comes easily to him.

"Hey, Hinata," he whispers while pointing, "take a look about two kilometers in that direction."

Hinata nods an affirmative and turns to scan the area.

"Two men.  They're stumbling about blindly in the dark, although they appear to be keeping a straight line.  They don't appear to be shinobi, nor do they have any kind of tracking devices."

Hinata watches for another minute or so, and Naruto keeps his ears perked for more information.  Eventually Hinata sighs in relief.

"It looks like they aren't going to come anywhere near us.  I'll keep watching though."

Naruto nods and puts his head back on the log and continues to listen to the beat of the forest.  Eventually the discord begins to fade away, and eventually disappear.

"They've gone right past us," Hinata whispers to Naruto, who simply nods.  "They passed within about three kilometres and continued on."

Naruto's eyes widen in surprise as a much harsher discord breaks the rhythm of the forest.  

"Hinata," he whispers harshly, "there's something violent over there.  What is it?"

Hinata quickly glances in the direction that Naruto indicated and has no trouble locating the new threat.

"Two samurai, with tracking dogs.  The dogs look vicious, and they're leading the samurai right to us.  We'll have to get rid of the dogs and lead the samurai off on a false trail"

Naruto nods and grunts in agreement.

"I'll go then.  You stay here and keep watching."

"B-but, it's going to be dangerous.  I should come and help."

Naruto grins but shakes his head.

"No way!  I'm just too good.  Besides," he continues in an undertone, "you're breathing has been becoming gradually heavier.  That byakugan must drain a fair chunk of your chakra."

Hinata's eyes widen slightly.  He's… concerned about me?  It's true that my constant use of byakugan is draining me, but I can't stop because of that…

"N-Naruto-kun…  Umm, I'm actually all right to go, so please let me come with you.  Umm… I can help you see where they are"

Naruto raises an eyebrow questioningly and looks at Hinata closely.  Maybe I did misjudge the amount of chakra she's used.  Hinata has surprised me in the past, that's for sure

Flashback to the chuunin exams.  Just when everyone thought Hinata was down for the count, she struggles back to her feet, coughing blood

"It's not over…"

"Alright, Hinata, lets take care of these clowns!  Yeah!"

With that, Naruto springs to his feet and leaps into the forest canopy, with Hinata hot on his heels.  As they near their targets, Hinata grabs Naruto's shoulder, forcing them to stop on the next branch.

Silently, she points to a path in the forest and Naruto manages to spot two figures holding leashes.  He nods.

"Here's the plan," he whispers quietly.  "I'm going to sneak over behind them, and make a noise.  You'll know it when you hear it.  As soon as I do that, kill the dogs silently."

Hinata nods, and Naruto continues.

"Hopefully, that'll drag the samurai after me, and when they take off after me, get the corpses and hide them somewhere in the trees, so the samurai can't get their bearings after I lose them.  Then meet me back here."

"Roger."

With that, Naruto disappears into some higher branches, leaving Hinata all alone.  With a determination rarely seen from her, however, she continues to track the movements of the dogs and their samurai masters.  She massages her shuriken holster gently and then her hand dives in, whipping out two shuriken.

After five minutes, Hinata hears a somewhat muffled fart, followed by a giggle and a hushed whisper – "You idiot!  They'll hear us!"

Hinata restrains the urge to giggle and instead launches the two shurikens, neatly taking the dogs through the head.

The samurais look at each other in dismay as they feel their leashes fall limp.

"That bastard!  He's going to pay!"  And the two samurai drop the leashes and leap blindly into the bushes.  Immediately, Hinata drops down to the ground, grabs the leashes and leaps back up into the trees without a sound.  She chuckles under her breath as she listens to Naruto lead the two samurai on a merry chase

Oh yeah, I'd better hide these dogs

Hinata quickly chooses a spot in the upper canopy of the forest and ties the leashes around a branch, concealing them from people on the ground.  She wastes no time getting back to the meeting spot and lies in wait of Naruto to return.

Seconds later, he leaps onto the branch, chuckling at his handiwork.  The two samurai are still crashing through the undergrowth.

"Where the hell are we?"  

Naruto and Hinata share a private giggle, then Hinata leads the way off the branch, back to the lookout.

She lands back on the branch and ducks back to the hiding spot, panting slightly.  Naruto lands next to her and hits the deck almost immediately.

"Hinata, maybe you should stop constantly using the byakugan.  You look tired."

"It's alright Naruto-kun.  I can tough it out another hour," is her reply.

I can't give up in front of Naruto-kun.  I must be strong

Naruto grins and claps a hand on her shoulder.

"That's what I like about you Hinata, you're not a quitter."

Hinata just blushes.

The remaining hour of their watch slips away slowly and Naruto becomes painfully aware of Hinata's lack of energy, as her breathing begins to swamp the rhythm of the forest with its harsh grating. 

However, he respects her wishes to keep up the byakugan vigil and makes nothing of the matter.

Slowly though, he begins to lose track of the beat, as her breathing becomes louder and louder and he begins to strain to hear anything else apart from her breathing… and at that point in time, the branch shakes twice, causing the blonde haired ninja to have his head slammed against the branch twice.

He bites back a curse and his hand flies instantly towards one of his kunais.  Naruto slides in front of Hinata, who by his best guess, can hardly stand.

However, she can reach out a hand and does exactly that, grabbing onto Naruto's shoulders.

"It's Aiba-kun and Shino-kun," she whispers in a barely audible voice.

Naruto nods, slides his kunai back into position and flips his head around to Hinata, who has released her byakugan and is now slumped over, breathing heavily.

Shino pokes his head into their hidy-hole.  

"What happened?"

"Hinata used her byakugan jutsu for four hours straight," Naruto whispers in reply, "and on top of that, we had to lay a false trail for a couple of trackers.  She's completely worn out."

"And you didn't attempt to stop her?"

"Hey, I tried at least twice.  But Hinata's a really determined girl.  I like that, it makes her a strong person."

Naruto grins and Hinata's eyes widen in surprise.

He thinks I'm strong?

"Anyway," Naruto continues, "We'll leave it to you then.  Sleep has never looked so good.  Come on, Hinata."

Naruto looks around at Hinata, who is still doubled over with one hand on his shoulder, taking big heavy breaths.  Naruto looks at her, confusion evident on his face.  Her hand slowly slips from his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun…  I don't have the strength left to get down."

Naruto's confusion is slowly erased from his face and is replaced with a smile.  He grabs Hinata's hands and wraps them over his shoulders, before picking her up on his back.

"Seeya in the morning guys!"

With that, Naruto leaps onto a lower branch, picking his way to the ground carefully.  When he reaches the thicket, he peels Hinata off his back and lays her gently on her blanket.

"Here, have this.  You need it more than I do at the moment."  

Naruto hurls his own blanket over to Hinata.  It lands on her, and with a small thank you, she arranges it over the top of her. 


	3. Of keys, ramen and friendships

Disclaimer – It's right at the top of the first chapter.  Read it again if you're desperate.  A/N Just trying a different method of formatting. 

Chapter 3

--------------

"Ramen!  Ramen!  Raaaamen," chants Naruto as he proudly marched through the streets of Leaf Village.

"Ramen for me because I did a dangerous mission!  Hooray!"

"Ramen for me because now I've got some money for doing a dangerous mission!"

It's quite obvious that the young kid is quite ecstatic about his good fortune.  He could remember quite clearly the events of that morning, when after two days the two groups made their way out of the forest, into the mission office and delivered their report and information personally to Tsunade.

He could remember looking at the pay slip Tsunade handed him for his services.  He couldn't remember exactly how many zeroes were on it.

He remembered trying to figure out how much would have to go into his expenses for the basics of living – rent, milk and instant ramen.  He remembered failing miserably and eventually managed to bug Sakura into doing it for him.  ("If you don't, I'll give you a big, sloppy kiss!")

He still couldn't remember how many zeroes were on the slip after Sakura handed it back to him, with her neat calculations down the side.  There were just too many.

Naruto remembers trying to think how on earth he could eat all the ramen he could buy with the left over money.  Immediately he thinks to invite his friends to eat with him, explaining the plan to cut away at his newly rejuvenated flog-wallet by paying for all his friends.

He remembers Sakura getting up him for being such an idiot.  ("Who'd want to buy a whole heap of ramen just to cut away at your bank account?!")  He remembers laughing as Sasuke told him they were all capable of paying for themselves anyway, as they got the same amount as he did.

He remembers asking all of them if they want to come anyway.  Shino politely refused, stating simply that he had to keep to a special diet.  Kiba refused as well.  It was something about 'family reasons.'  Naruto was somewhat surprised when Sasuke agreed.  ("I've got nothing left in my cupboards.")

Of course, that meant that Sakura-chan would be coming as well.  ("Sasuke-kun…").  Hinata said she'd be there, ("T-Thank you for inviting me, Naruto-kun"), which had Naruto slightly confused as well.  He was under the impression she didn't have much of a social life.  Maybe she was trying to open up or something?

--------------

And now, the blonde chuunin strolls marches through the streets to his home while chanting some very strange things about ramen.  

He passes by the academy and chuckles at Iruka, who is trying desperately to chase down little Konohamaru.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto calls out, causing Iruka to momentarily lose his concentration.  Konohamaru leaps to the trees and Iruka curses.

"Naruto!  You did that on purpose, didn't you!"

Naruto sticks his tongue out at his old teacher, who looks furious for a second but he quickly mellows out and begins to grin.

"So you got back from your mission alright?  How'd it go?"

"Too easy for me, Iruka-sensei.  Those guys needed stronger shinobi's!"

Iruka chuckles at the arrogant little brat in front of him.

"Well done.  I'm sorry I can't hear more right now, but I should be teaching.  When you catch up with your little friend, tell him I want him back in my class."

"Sure sure."

And Naruto continues on his merry way, eventually arriving at his house.

Just in time for lunch!

Just as Naruto is about to tuck into some instant Miso ramen, Kakashi strolls through the front door, book in hand.

"You know, you should really learn to lock your door."

"Kakashi-sensei!  You should have seen it!  I totally kicked ass!"

Kakashi's surprise entrance doesn't seem to perturb Naruto.  It's hardly a surprise for the young ninja.  Kakashi shows up where he wants, when he wants.  

Kakashi grins under his mask.  "I'm sure you did.  I just thought I'd pop by to see how you were going, and to tell you that I've got another mission for you tomorrow.  Same time, same place."

"Yeah yeah.  Hey!  We're going to have ramen tonight.  Want to come?" enquires Naruto hopefully.  "That way I can tell you about my cool moves!"

Kakashi's grin widens.

"If you're paying"

"Of course!  I'm so rich after that last mission!  It's so awesome!"

"Well I'll see you at the ramen stand later tonight then.  Bye"

Kakashi waves cheerfully as he strolls out the door, leaving Naruto to his steaming bowl of ramen.

Ah ramen.  How I love thee

When darkness descends around the village, Naruto decides it's time to go to the ramen shop, giggling in his mind.

Hehe.  If I'm there early, I can slip a few extra bowls in without anyone noticing

The hyperactive ninja's eyes roam all over the place as he strolls leisurely towards the ramen shop, not really finding anything to keep his attention for more than a few seconds at most.  A cat running across the street.  A tree shedding a few leaves.  A bird diving from another tree to land on a power line.  A sobbing Hinata on a park bench.  The sign above the ramen st…

Wait a minute.

A sobbing Hinata on a park bench.  That didn't feel right.  A medium sized backpack was on the bench next to her.

Naruto didn't have a mean heart.  So he went to find out what was wrong.

"Hey, Hinata," says Naruto as he sits on the park bench next to her.  "What's the problem?  What's in here?"

Naruto pokes the backpack suspiciously, as though expecting the thing to explode.  Hinata stifles a giggle through her tears, with the net result being some kind of snort.  Naruto bursts out laughing.

"What's gotten you so down?"

"N-nothing."

"You can't fool me.  I know something is wrong.  Or else you wouldn't be crying."

Hinata stops sobbing and wipes away a tear.

"I'm not crying.  I'm strong enough not to cry."

"Come on Hinata…" Naruto coaxes, and he finally gets a substantial response.

"I told my parents about how I completed the mission and killed that jounin and everything…  And they just didn't care."

Hinata stops to rub her eyes, then continues on.

"And I kind of snapped.  I couldn't take it.  I told them I was packing up and going."

Hinata turns to look Naruto dead in the eye.

"And they didn't say a thing.  Not a single thing.  I went to my room and packed up without considering the consequences.  I've got no-where to stay and I'm not going back."

Naruto looks at Hinata proudly and stretches out to pat her on the shoulder.

"Well done.  Stick to your word.  Now grab that backpack of yours and lets get some ramen.  I'm sure everything will sort itself out."

Naruto's optimistic attitude must have instilled some sense of hope into Hinata, that somehow, just somehow, everything will turn out just right after a bowl or two of ramen.  She grabs her pack and slings it around her back and begins to follow Naruto into the ramen shop.

--------------

"Hey old man!  A bowl of miso ramen!"

"Ummm… I'll have one too please."

"No worries young-un's!  Give me five minutes!"

The silence is unbearable for Hinata, who can't find anything with which to occupy her while they wait.  This isn't a problem for Naruto – the smells emanating from the kitchen have him in a trance.

Eventually, Hinata decides to break the silence rather than stare at the empty table.

"Naruto-kun, why did you come here so early?"

Naruto's face flips away from the kitchen in a blink and looks at Hinata in absolute seriousness.

"You've gotta promise to tell absolutely no-one what I'm about to tell you, okay?"

Hinata nods in nervous agreement.  Naruto takes this at face value and moves closer, glancing left and right as he does so.

"It's because I wanted to eat a few bowls of ramen before anyone else got here.  If Sakura knew, she'd chuck a fit and call me a fat pig," the blonde ninja whispers conspiratorially.  

Hinata does a minor sweatdrop.

"T-that's a good plan."

And the ramen arrives.  Naruto doesn't waste any time gobbling his down and asks for another.  Hinata eats at a more leisurely pace and just finishes when Naruto's second bowl arrives.

Naruto eats slightly slower this time.  Just as the waiter takes his bowl back, Sakura walks in.  Naruto heaves a sigh of relief.

"Sakura-chan!"

He stands up and waves.  Sakura notices them and walks over.  Just as she is about to take the seat next to Naruto, a puff of smoke heralds Kakashi's arrival…  In the seat Sakura was about to use.

"Sorry Sakura.  I hope you weren't about to use this seat?"

Sakura grunts and sits next to Hinata instead.  Kakashi grins wanly under his mask.

"Is Sasuke-kun here yet?"  Sakura asks hopefully.

"Use your eyes Sakura," admonishes Kakashi.  "Does it look like he is?"

Sakura pouts.  Why is he so damn annoying?

Kakashi, Naruto, Hinata and Sakura order.

"I'll have a garlic ramen thanks," mentions Sasuke to the old fogy as he silently slips into place next to Sakura.

"Sasuke-kun!" She gasps.  "How was your day?"

"Boring."

He shrugs.  It's a good thing Sasuke chose not to elaborate further, because at that moment, Naruto chose to launch into a graphic description of his fight with the jounin.

What a moron

Sasuke attempts to fend off several advances made at him by Sakura, but sort of fails.  He won't admit it openly, but he's actually trying to listen in on Naruto's explanation of the fight.

Owing to the exaggeration of Naruto's story, he's barely halfway through when the noodles arrive.  The arrival of food doesn't prevent him from continuing, indeed, the only change is that now Naruto somehow seems to be telling the story with a mouthful of noodles.

"And then, Hinata killed the guy with her kunai as he came past the corner.  Of course, I was all ready to do my Naruto Rendan combo, but she saved me from wasting all that chakra," Naruto finishes while slurping up the rest of his noodles.

Kakashi hasn't even touched his.

"Oh yeah," mentions Naruto as an after thought, "Hinata ran away from home.  Does anyone have any ideas on where she can stay?"

Hinata blushes and attempts to hide under the table.  Kakashi remains ambiguous behind his mask.  Sasuke's eyes widen oh so slightly.

Sakura slams her hands on the table and screams directly into Naruto's ear.

"You great big moron!  You need to sort out your priorities!  Hinata's problem is a heap more important than your 'great victory'!  Idiot!"

Sakura calms down slightly and turns to talk to Hinata.

"I'd let you stay at my place, but I don't think my parents would enjoy having anyone stay over for more than a night.  Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to put anyone on the spot like this.  The threat of my parents suddenly wanting me back is quite a deterrent as well."

"Actually," says Sakura, "I don't think that would matter too much to most of us here.  What I don't understand is why that idiot didn't invite you to stay at his place straight away."

"Eh?" grunts Naruto as he looks up from a bowl of ramen that has mysteriously appeared in front of him.

"YOU TOTAL MORON!"  *Thump!*****

Naruto quickly rights his seat and climbs back on it then scratches the back of his head in thought.

"I guess I was thinking too much about ramen…  But that would work well!  It'd be cool having someone to live with me, and you stay for as long as you want, cause I've got no parents who might get annoyed, and I don't give a stuff about your parents.  This is gunna be fun!"

Naruto prances around in excitement, and Hinata blushes as she watches him.

"Thank you so much Naruto.  It – it means a lot to me, having someone who is willing to take me in like this."

"No problem.  Like I said, this is going to be awesome!"

Kakashi turns around and grins at his student.  

"Well Naruto, it'll be interesting to see if you change with a new roomie.  Speaking of her – Hinata?"

"Yes?"

"You're being split off from your team to help these guys with their next mission.  It's a tough one and will require a medic, that's why we've gotten you."

"What about my team's mission?"

"Don't worry.  I've talked to Kurenai about it, and she said she'd give your team easy missions until you get back."

"…"  Hinata doesn't look too convinced.

"This is an extremely important mission in the overall scheme of things.  If you feel like coming, Naruto will show you where to go in the morning.  Anyway, I've got to go now.  Thanks for the meal Naruto!"

"But Kakashi-sensei, you haven't…" Naruto begins, gesturing to Kakashi's – empty - bowl of ramen.

Naruto hmphs.  When'd he eat that?

Sasuke stands up to leave, and Sakura turns with him.

"Thanks Naruto," says Sasuke.  "It was an interesting experience."

The corners of Sasuke's mouth lift up in a small grin.

"Sasuke-kun!  Are you leaving already?  Would you walk me home please?  My mum would have a fit if she knew I was walking home all alone at nighttime…"

Either the fact that Sakura is one of the best leaf genins around has evaded her notice, or she's up to something.  Sasuke bets on the latter – The fact that she is smiling coyly tips the odds in his favour.

He sighs, and not for the first time wonders what he's done to attract the attention of all the girls his age.  He visibly rolls his eyes into the back of his head before replying.

"Come on then, I don't have all day."

*Thunk*

The pink haired shinobi and Naruto both pick their jaws off the ground at the same time and spend some time trying to shove them back into place.  

"Ahh…  Thank you.  My mum will be so pleased."

"Whatever.  Let's go"

Sasuke slides past the corner of the stand, with Sakura following like a meek little dog.  Naruto sighs as both of them pass out of view, then shakes his head.

"Ah well," he says, grinning in that foxy way of his, "we may as well get going as well, eh?"

Hinata nods in agreement.  "Ah, okay."

Naruto counts out some money, hands it to the geezer behind the counter and walks out of the stand with his new roommate next to him.

--------------

Sasuke and Sakura have been walking for about five minutes in dead silence.  The light patter of footsteps is slowly beginning to get to Sasuke, who begins to wonder why on earth he decided to escort this girl home.

Just to shut her up, I guess

"Sasuke-kun?"

Looks like it didn't work

Sasuke turns his head a little to look at Sakura.  "Yes?" he responds in a somewhat defeated voice.

Sakura begins to fidget a bit.  It seems like she's got something important on her mind.  Something very important.  Sasuke notices her fidgeting and stops walking altogether.  He sighs yet again.

"You are allowed to speak you know."

Sakura jumps slightly.

"Sorry.  Look, Sasuke-kun, could we sit down and talk?"

"About what?" he replies, somewhat distantly?

"About us… where our relationship stands…"

Sasuke had been expecting something like this, but his eyes widen slightly anyway.  He leads them to a seat under a large oak tree, and sits down.  Sakura takes a seat next to him, but avoids looking directly at his.  Instead she stares at her feet.

"I guess I'll cut right to the chase," Sakura begins, "do you like me?"

Sasuke looks dead ahead, his face covered by the shadow cast by the big oak behind them.  He exhales slowly.

"I… do like you Sakura, but probably not in the way you want me to."

Sakura's eyes drop lower, and tears begin to form at the periphery of her vision.

"Please… please don't get me wrong, Sakura.  You're the only girl in the village who… I like… but I've got other things on my mind right now."

The tears swell up on the corners of her eyes, but don't quite flow over yet.  She lifts her head, smiling.

"I understand.  I guess I can wait a while, eh?"

As Sasuke stands up, the shadows play a game of chasey over his body.

"Thank you for understanding, Sakura."

The two ninjas finish their journey in silence.

--------------

On the other side of town, Naruto is busy trying to open his door.  He spouts several choice curses as he fumbles around with his keys, most of which are directed at Kakashi.

"This is why I don't lock the bloody door…"

Eventually the key clicks home and with a deft twist, the door opens.  Naruto stumbles over the threshold and fumbles in the semi darkness for a light switch.  Within seconds, light floods the kitchen area and entrance, illuminating Hinata, who is still at the door.  Naruto peers at her quizzically.

"What're you waiting for?  A written invitation?  This is your house too you know."

"I forgot.  This is just a bit… weird."

"I'm sure you'll get used to it."

Hinata steps in and surveys the kitchen area.  Given her expectations about a boy living by himself, the kitchen is quite clean.  Naruto gives her a quick tour of the house and Hinata finds herself quite amazed at the state of cleanliness.  

"And this is my room," Naruto opens the door with a sweeping gesture, allowing Hinata to fully examine the room.  "Tonight you can sleep on the floor here.  I'll drag out a mattress."

A blush slowly begins to creep up Hinata's cheeks.

"Isn't there another room?"

Naruto grins sheepishly and scratches the back of his head.

"Well yeah, but it's kind of messy…"

"The rest of your house is spotless.  I'm sure it can't be that bad."

"Well… hmm… let me put it this way," Naruto eyes roll up into the top of his head for a second as he tries to think of a way to communicate his exact thoughts.  "That's where I put all the mess."

Hinata's eyes widen slightly in understanding.  An image of mountains upon mountains of discarded lego, old toys and huge stacks of paper fill her mind.  "Ahh…"

"Exactly," nods Naruto seriously.  "But when we get back from tomorrow's mission we can clean it up for you."

Naruto opens up a cupboard, drags a mattress out and flops it on the floor next to his bed.  He then digs around a bit more in the cupboard and pulls out a pillow and a doona.  The blonde ninja flings them unceremoniously on the mattress and immediately begins to rip off his shirt, having somehow managing to forget the presence of his new roomie.

A gentle cough reminds him that at this exact point in time a person of the opposite gender is in the same room.

"…"  

Naruto makes futile motions over his shoulder towards the door.  "Umm… Hinata, could you, you know?"

Hinata quickly yet gracefully leaves the room, allowing Naruto to get changed in peace.  He jumps into his bed and yells through the door.

"Hinata!  It's ok, you can come in now!"

Hinata opens the door and lets herself in.  She's taken the time to change into her pyjamas as well.

"Could you get the light?"

Hinata nods.  "Sure"

She flicks off the light and blindly makes her way to the mattress, before collapsing into it and pulling the doona over her head.

"Goodnight, Naruto-kun."


	4. Tactics and trouble

Disclaimer – See chapter 1, I'm too lazy to copy/paste.  

A/N Got a few reviews rolling in, just thought I'd address them.  Ta for hint about anonymous reviews, and yeah, it's is also going to be a romance, but it's going to be built on the action, so I considered it an action/adventure but in hindsight that was a fairly stupid move.  Mistake corrected, on with the story.

Chapter 4

The rest of the night had come and gone fairly uneventfully for team seven and their impromptu new member.  And so, bright and early the next morning, Sakura, Sasuke, Hinata and the one and only Uzamaki Naruto find themselves waiting at a certain bridge, watching the water flow under them.

Morning gives way to noon and Naruto is left wondering why he always gets up so early every morning if Kakashi-sensei is always going to be late.

Probably because the day that I am late, he'll show up on time

Hinata is looking worried despite Sakura's and Naruto's assurances that Kakashi is always late.  She raises her hand to tap Naruto on the shoulder for the twelfth time when a sudden rush of wind brings everyone's attention to the top of a gate.

Sure enough, Kakashi is there, smiling wanly.

"Sorry I'm late.  Jiraiya-sama lent me a advance copy of his new book to pre-read, and I got a bit caught up in it."

"Liar!" accuse Sakura and Naruto in perfect unison.  They hmph theatrically, causing Kakashi to grin wider under that mask of his.

"Anyway, back to your mission.  This is a B rank mission.  The fifth has looked over the information you guys obtained earlier and determined that the best way to defend Leaf Village against this external threat is to assassinate the warlord behind it all."

"So basically, we've got to kill the guy we took this information off?" interjects Sasuke.  Kakashi nods.

"While the mission is B rank, we don't expect too much in the way of hard opposition.  It's a high rank mission because it threatens the village."

Kakashi pauses for a second, to make sure that everyone understands.  Before he can continue, Hinata hesitantly raises her hand.

"Umm… why do you need me if it's not expected to be a tough mission?"

"A good point.  Basically, it all comes down to operating procedure.  I've been assigned to a different mission and because I can't oversee these guys, a medical ninja is required.  You're the only one who really fit the bill."

Hinata nods.

"Here's the mission briefing."

Kakashi's eye rolls into the back of his head, as though he is trying to remember something.  It floats back down and he begins.

"The target is Shigeru Shinbo.  He is a skilled samurai and is guarded at all time by his best warriors.  We have no reason to believe he has employed any shinobi.  For the next week he will be examining his forces and trying to shift them into place for the attack on Leaf from his main fortress, which you infiltrated earlier.  Once he is dead, it is expected that the will of his soldiers to fight will fail and they will begin to desert, as the majority are mercenaries.  It is vital you eliminate the target within four days, as that is when he will launch his attack.  Have you got that?"

Naruto looks a little bit lost, but the rest of the group nod in confirmation.  Kakashi glances at Naruto, but he wasn't really expecting Naruto to digest all that information at once anyway.

"Very well," he concludes.  "Good luck."

And in a puff of smoke, the copy ninja disappears, leaving the four children on the bridge to their own devices.

"We'd better get ready to go," says Sasuke, smooth as ever.

Naruto grunts in agreement and the two girls simply nod their heads.

"We'll meet at the village gate in half an hour with all our stuff then," finishes up Sasuke, before turning his back to the group and walking off.  Sakura raises her hand and opens her mouth to yell out something, but no sound comes out.

Sasuke-kun…  Perhaps I shouldn't push you

Half an hour later, the four ninjas meet up just inside the Leaf Village's massive gate all wearing plain, travel-worn backpacks.  Sasuke merely nods to the rest of his group before signing them all out with the gatekeeper.

The first day's travel is fairly uneventful and made at a relatively slow pace as the group don't feel like needlessly wasting their chakra.  As a result they only manage to cover ten kilometers in the first afternoon.  Eventually they choose a secluded glade just off the road to set up camp, and begin to formulate a plan for the assassination.

"So what's the plan?" asks Naruto as he pulls the billy from the fire and adds a couple of packets of instant ramen to the boiling water.

"We were about to come up with one," replies Sakura in a kind of pissed off manner.  "Here's how I see it.  Once we get to the castle, we sneak in before dawn, stay as a group and hide somewhere in his chambers before swatting him down with a couple of shurikens in the back."

"That'd be too slow," grumbles Naruto through a mouthful of ramen.  "Why don't I just summon the boss toad on top of the castle?"

"It's a waste of chakra and seriously lacking in subtly.  We'll leave that as our 'we're totally screwed' plan.  Sakura's is nice, simple and clean."

Naruto pouts.  "You're just jealous 'cos you can't summon frogs"

Sasuke responds with a voice loaded with sarcasm.  "Oh yeah, I'm sooo jealous that I can't summon a useless creature."

"Just wait until I summon one on your head and you get stuck in its arse!"

Naruto clenches his fist and waves it in Sasuke's face.  Sakura looks at Hinata and rolls her eyes in exasperation.

"Will you two shut up?  Naruto, we're not going to summon toads unless we're backed right into a corner, okay?  It's too damn conspicuous.  So shut up and let us get back to the planning."

Naruto, looking suitably chastened, flops back into a sitting position and continues gulping up ramen.  He offers the bowl to Hinata who grabs a pair of chopsticks from her cooking set and begins to eat with him.

"Anyway, that's pretty much the plan," continues Sakura.  "Once we've taken him down, we're going to have to deal with his bodyguard and get out."

"Hey hey!  Wouldn't it be better if we took them all out at once?  That way none of them could possibly raise the alarm."

Sasuke looks somewhat awestruck.  Naruto coming up with a sensible idea?!

"We will if we can, but we don't know how many bodyguards there are.  There might be too many for us to all take out at once," says Saukra slowly, carefully running through both her and Naruto's ideas for any flaws.

"Hey, that won't be a problem," says the fox boy with a wide grin.  "Don't forget about this little move"

Naruto quickly crosses his fingers in front of his nose and begins to expel chakra.

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

And another Naruto pops out next to him.

"I can use my kage bunshin to create as many of me as we need for this.  Although, considering just what a master ninja I am, we probably won't need too many."  Both Naruto's grin and then the clone pops out of existence, leaving Sasuke more awestruck than before.

Two good ideas within five minutes?  That's got to be some kind of record

Sakura just looks at Naruto and nods.  "That's the plan then.  Hinata, what do you know about the layout of the castle?"

"Mmph."  Hinata downs her current mouthful of ramen and pokes the chopsticks into the remaining mess of noodles.

"A fair bit.  I'll draw out the floor plan."

Hinata grabs a stick and spends the next couple of minutes scratching away at the dirt.

"Finished," she says and steps back to survey her handiwork.  Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura crowd around her.

"Front gate here…  Main hall here…  This is the audience room…  And these are his chambers," says Hinata as she points out each of the architectural features in turn with her stick.

Hinata plows on before the others can get a word in.

"Without someone else creating a distraction, the best way to get in would be to get in the moat and get into the castle basement.  The stairs from the basement to the ground floor are here…"

Hinata points to a bit of dirt on her diagram.

"From there, we can sneak through these tunnels here… and here… and ambush this Shinbo guy in his antechamber."

"Sounds good," says Sasuke.  "Did you get any info on the guards locations and watch times?"

"Sorry, we didn't."

"It probably wouldn't matter much anyway," mumbles Sakura thoughtfully.  "They would have had to have changed them after our last little foray."

Sasuke grunts in acknowledgement.  Naruto's face splits into a huge grin, then he bursts into laughter.

"Of course they did!  But it doesn't matter, we'll go in really early and catch them with their pants down!"

With that, Naruto turns away from the pack and plops down into the dirt.  He grabs the billy containing his and Hinata's noodles and begins stuffing his face.  Sakura shrugs and sits down on the opposite side of the fire.  Hinata looks at Naruto and a slight blush stains her cheeks as he motions her to finish the rest of their ramen.

Sasuke just stands over the map, staring into the fading light.

The next day, the group turns up the pace a bit, taking to the trees where they can.  Late in the afternoon, Sasuke calls them to a halt above a couple of samurai who are having a chinwag over a couple of glasses of sake.  Their heraldry identifies them as some of Shinbo's soldiers.

"Where'd you find this stuff man?  It's pretty good."

"I kind of picked it up from the warlord's stores when no one was looking.  It's not bad, isn't it?"

The pair continue drinking in silence for 10 minutes.  Sasuke, who is getting annoyed by the lack of interesting talk, crouches down in preparation for a leap to the next tree…

"Hey, what do you think of the missing-nins the master hired?"

… And fights back the twitch reflex to make the leap.

"Meh.  A waste of money.  He's only got them because he's afraid Leaf will come after him again…  Hell we could take on anyone Leaf throws our way."

Naruto's fist clenches hard enough to draw blood from his palm.  Sakura places a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to dissuade him from revealing himself.  It works.

"Yeah, that's true.  Although I don't know why he wants those devious bastards working so close to him though…  They're swarming the forests like insects."

A sober silence fills the air.  Sasuke decides he's heard enough for now and takes to the air again.  The others follow suit, staying hot on his heels as the Uchiha ninja scoots through the forest canopy.  At dusk, they reach the edge of the forest and Sasuke calls it quits for the day.

The group quickly prepare their campsite and begin to discuss the new development.

"So what should we do about the ninjas?" asks Hinata in her quiet voice.

After mulling over it for a few minutes, Sasuke responds

"I think we'll just work hard on trying to stay under the radar.  If we get caught we'll just deal with it as it comes," replies Sasuke finally.  He then sits down on a convenient log and chews away at some salted fish he brought along.

There appear to be no objections to the plan, and after a quiet and quick dinner, Hinata and Naruto turn to their well concealed tents, leaving Sakura and Sasuke by themselves in the dark.

"Sakura, we should go to bed soon.  We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and it starts early."

Sakura turns to face Sasuke.  Her eyes roam over his face, looking for some hint of compassion on his features.  Eventually they drop and Sakura sighs heavily.

Does he care for me at all, or was he just blowing me off?

Sakura turns tiredly and mumbles some kind of affirmative.  As she completes her turn, a heavy object plants itself on her shoulder and prevents further movement.

Sasuke pulls his hand back slightly and draws Sakura slightly closer to him.

"Take care tomorrow.  I don't want to see you hurt," he whispers.  Wordlessly, Sakura nods and she feels as though a huge weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

Sasuke-kun, thank you for caring

A/N – I actually had all the chapters up to five already written, which is why I seem to be updating at a rapid pace.  Once I hit the next chapter, expect things to slow down.  Also this is going to be short fic, as I lack the attention span to finish off large ones, so don't get too disappointed when it stops at the 7th or 8th chapter.


	5. I will not go quietly into the night

Disclaimer – See chapter 1.  

A/N – I've reached the end of all the chapters I've already had written, and with uni and procrastination holding sway over my life at the moment, I wouldn't hold your breath for a hurried update.

Chapter 5

The day had not been a good one for the ninjas from the Leaf village.

And they'd only been awake for a couple of hours.

"This is bullshit," mutters Naruto under his breath as he desperately parries an incoming kunai with his own.  

Sasuke's sharingan marks wheel about in his eyes, reading their enemies movements and trying to come up with a way to defeat him.

How did we let ourselves get discovered this quickly?  He pulls a kunai out of his ninja bag and flicks in nimbly towards their attacker.  The ninja dodges with ease and resumes his attack on Naruto.

I know!

"Naruto!  Give us a bit of cover!"

"I'm on it!  Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

Naruto quickly performs the seal and splits into 5 identical copies of himself.  They crowd around the enemy, kicking up dust and constantly hurling abuse towards him, providing the perfect distraction for Sasuke.

Sasuke stealthily makes his way to the back of the melee while Sakura and Hinata hide themselves in the trees.

Suddenly, Sasuke strikes.  He leaps from his hiding place and launches himself towards the enemy ninja, with a kunai in each hand.  The distance between the enemy shinobi and Sasuke closes in a heartbeat.

A wet tearing sound fills the air.

Sasuke's heavy body has fallen limp over the shinobi's quickly reversed kunai.  The ninja momentarily turns around to check the dead boy.  With a reasonably loud pop and a bit of smoke, the body turns into Naruto.

From within the group of Narutos, Sasuke's voice is heard.

"Katon! Goukakyuu no jutsu!"

A blazing inferno engulfs the ninja.  Four Naruto's disappear in a puff of smoke, including the one impaled on the kunai.

Several seconds later, the only thing left on the torched earth are some ashes.  Sasuke signals that the coast is clear and the girls drop out of trees.

"This is the third time today," complains Sakura.  "Are we wearing bells or something?"

"Someone good is obviously tracking us," says Hinata calmly.  "But I don't understand why they keep sending genins to intercept us"

"That person probably wants to figure out how we fight before taking us on himself.  But this is getting us nowhere," replies Sasuke, and he takes to the trees, closely followed by Naruto, Sakura and finally Hinata.

Once in the relative safety of the trees, Naruto begins to talk.

"So, how about if Sasuke and I just fight all the genins we come across today?  If we use the same tactics over and over again, we can just do something different when we fight our tracker."

"It's a good idea in theory," begins Sasuke "and we'll run with it for a while."

The group continue on through the forest canopy slowly, beating off various attacks with ease.  Eventually, Sasuke's and Naruto's chakra use begin to take their toll, and sometime around dusk, Sakura and Hinata demand to stop for a break to let the boys catch their breath.

Sasuke shakes his head widly.

"No!" he hisses.  "If we show weakness, our tracker friend is going to show his ugly face and that's not a good idea now."

"You're quite right," booms a voice from somewhere in the trees.  Naruto and Sasuke jerk their heads around, desperately trying to locate the owner of the voice.

A missing-nin dressed in a black robe drops from the trees behind the group, causing Sakura to emit a muffled scream and stumble a few steps towards Sasuke.  Hinata turns to face their new opponent, but in a flash Naruto appears in front of her.

She can see sweat dripping off the back of his neck, and his breathing is hard and loud.  To her, he looks completely exhausted and all the dark haired girl wants to do is take him and comfort him.  Unfortunately, now is not the time for that.

"Naruto-kun…" she whispers, trying to project as much concern into her voice as she can.  Naruto picks it up straight away.

"Don't worry Hinata, Sasuke and I will have this guy down in no time."

Hinata's eyes shoot a quick glance of concern at the back of her crush's head.  Naruto glances across to Sasuke who has apparently been involved in the same kind of conversation that he has been in.  He looks back at their new enemy and grins.

"Let's roll!  Sasuke!"

Sasuke grins in reply.  The two boys leap forward to begin the attack and the two girls leap straight up into the cover of the trees.

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

Once again, Naruto utilizes his shadow clones to help give him and Sasuke the advantage.  However, instead of creating a distraction, the five clones spread out around the missing nin, each manning the point of a star.

"Interesting.  It seems you aren't as dumb as you look."

"I'll give you dumb," Naruto roars as his clones all charge at once.  One pulls it's fist back and lashes out hard – only to be blocked and flipped away.  This in turn throws the real Naruto off the clones back and sends him spinning.

The remaining three clones drop to the ground and begin to raise their feet towards the midriff of the black ninja.  Before the ninja can react, they connect, sending him soaring through the air.

Sasuke immediately launches himself after the ninja and begins running through the sequence of his lion combo technique.  The first kick is blocked, the follow up kick is caught and the elbow drive is as well.  The ninja uses his leverage to hurl Sasuke towards the ground.  Fortunately for the young Uchiha genius, Naruto manages to make a diving catch, so no major damage is incurred.

"I was expecting more from you two.  It's such a pity you had to waste your chakra fighting my underlings.  Lord Shinbo will be most disappointed in the quality of the ninja's that Leaf sent to kill him."

Naruto has now planted Sasuke back on his feet, but both are panting heavily and are showing signs of major exertion.  

"Pfft.  Don't… count on us just… keeling over… now," stammers Naruto between pants.

"Oh please," mutters the missing-nin contemptuously.  Within the space of a heartbeat, he has covered the distance between him and Naruto.  The ninja in black quickly drives his fist deep into Naruto's stomach before the blonde chuunin can react.  Net result, one unconscious Naruto.

Sasuke watches on with a grimace.  In the trees, both Hinata and Sakura raise their hands to their mouths and gasp silently.

Before the missing-nin has time to gloat, Sasuke snaps out his trance and springs backwards, hurling a veritable barrage of bladed weapons towards their aggressor.

The projectiles gracefully home in towards their intended target, who just as gracefully dodges…  And is taken by surprise as a hidden flight of shuriken emerge in the ninja's blind spot.  Sasuke grins as the ninja is forced to roughly hurl himself to the side.  The dodge isn't fully effective though.  Two shuriken trace a blood path across his leg.

"Whoops, did I forget to tell you about that?" Sasuke smirks.  

The ninja grimaces as he pulls himself up.  "Very clever.  However, now it's my turn."

The ninja's hands glide through a complex set of seals.  In order to prevent the release of his chakra and hence the effects of the forthcoming jutsu, Sasuke hurls a kunai towards the mystery ninja.  This has little effect, for as soon as the kunai has left his hand, the ninja ceases hand movement.

"Earth hammer no jutsu!"

A large two by two metre section of earth in front of Sasuke pulls itself free from the ground and flips over, catching the hurled kunai and almost Sasuke as well.  Fortunately, the young Uchiha prodigy has used a chakra enhanced leap to propel himself backwards and out of danger.

I'm running dangerously low on chakra… This is going to be an all or nothing effort

The infamous sharingan swirls appear in Sasuke's eyes and he launches himself high into the air to begin his final assault.  With lightning speed the young chuunin removes the last two of his kunai's and wields one in each hand, then crashes down onto their assailant with overwhelming force. 

A cloud of dust covers both Sasuke and the mysterious ninja as they fall to the ground in a tangle.  As the dust clears, both girls begin to observe a desperate taijitsu struggle and hear the sound of blade on blade as Sasuke and his opponent dance around each other, both looking for any openings in the other's defence.

The whirlwind of kunai strikes continues unabated for a minute or two, however Sasuke's lack of chakra appears to be taking its toll.  The sweat on Sasuke begins to pour off by the bucket load and his breathing seems to become almost as much of a struggle as the fight itself.  His opponent, sensing the weakness, presses the attack and lunges straight forward at Sasuke with his two kunai's extended out in front of him.  Sasuke's eyes widen.

This is it!  My opportunity!

Using the speed and foresight that his Sharingan technique enables him, Sasuke leans over backwards and as the strike passes over his stomach, Sasuke brings one foot up hard and plants it in his opponent's chest.  This has the effect of throwing the ninja off balance and he begins to fall on top of Sasuke.  The Uchiha prodigy simply falls back on the ground and uses their combined momentum to throw the missing-nin over him.

Sasuke quickly flips to his feet and leaps towards the downed ninja, kunai's at the ready.  As he begins to swipe at the prone ninja, it suddenly kicks into motion and in an action to fast for any normal eye to follow, completely turns the tables by somehow sending Sasuke skidding into some undergrowth, face down.

"Now!" hisses Sakura, from somewhere in the canopy.

It appears that Sakura was waiting for a moment like this.  In the blink of an eye, several shurikens are launched from the pink genin's hands, humming through the air on the way to their intended target.

Three wet slapping sounds and a pitiful sigh are the only sounds that break the sudden silence.  The mysterious ninja has been pinned to the ground by three shuriken.  One through the heart, one through the throat and one between the eyes.

Sasuke pulls himself up, battered, bruised and tired, just in time to see Hinata and Sakura alight gently on the ground next to him.  

"Sasuke-kun!  Are you alright?"  

"I'm fine," grunts Sasuke.  "What about the loser?"

Hinata turns to look at Naruto's prone form.  Her eyes widen in concern and she leaves Sakura's side to check over Naruto.  She gulps as she rolls the normally hyperactive shinobi onto his back and blushes as she lifts his shirt up so she can examine the wounded area.

Sasuke begins to unsteadily walk towards Naruto, and Sakura quickly rushes to him, throwing a hand under his shoulder in an attempt to steady him.  Sasuke tries to pull away, but Sakura doggedly keeps moving next to him.  Sasuke sighs.

"Thank you, Sakura," he mutters under his breath.  "For saving my life as well."

Sakura merely looks at her feet.

They quickly reach Hinata and Naruto, where Hinata is looking rather worried, and with good reason too.  A large, dark purple splotch is covering the stomach of the blonde chuunin and Hinata has her byakugan engaged.

"What's wrong with the loser?" Sasuke spits as they approach.

Hinata raises her head from her analysis of Naruto's inner systems.  "Umm…  He's bruised badly, and he is suffering from mild internal bleeding.  I don't think he's going anywhere for a while."

Hinata disengages her byakugan and looks at Sasuke.

"A-Are you alright Sasuke?  Do you want me look at your injuries?"

Sasuke backs off a step or two and protectively brings an arm in front of his body.  "No thanks, I just need rest," he replies, panting.  "We may as well stop here for a while.  We're only an hour away from the castle and our operation needs to take place after midnight.  We'll stop and rest here to allow time for Naruto to recover and then get moving just after midnight."

Hinata carefully picks up the unconscious Naruto and follows Sakura and Sasuke into the forest canopy.  They find a fairly thick branch within a couple of minutes and Hinata wordlessly lays Naruto down in a hollow.  Sasuke picks a spot for himself and collapses down in a heap.  Sakura sighs and turns to Hinata.

"We should organize watches."

Hinata nods in agreement.  "I'll go first, I still have to try and sort out this internal bleeding."

Sakura nods and lays down not too far away, closing her eyes.

Although in truth, I'm not sure what I can do for him.

Hinata ends up quietly and quickly making a paste of some sort, and attempts to feed it to the unconscious boy.  By reflex, Naruto manages to swallow a small quantity and Hinata sighs with helplessness.  For all the good it will do, she applies a bandage to the bruised area and leaves they boy alone, although she never strays more than a step or two away from him during her watch.

Several hours later, Sakura's sleep is disturbed as the dedicated medical ninja of the team gently shakes her awake.  Sakura efficiently brings herself to her feet and scans the area quickly before turning to face Hinata.

"My turn?" The young pink haired genin whispers.

Hinata nods and Sakura flashes her a thumbs up.  Glad to be relieved and still somewhat tired, the Hyuuga shinobi stumbles towards a nook in the branch and lies down quietly, offering barely a sigh to the night as she drifts into slumber.

"Oi, Hinata, wake up."

Hinata mumbles in her sleep and twitches slightly.  Unperturbed by the lack of a response, her waker continues in his efforts, now grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking gently as well.

"Hinataaaa…  It's time to go now," a boyish whisper announces.

Hinata slowly opens her eyes and focuses on the young chuunin in front of her.  It takes less than a second for recognition to kick in, as even though the figure is mostly a fuzz of colour only person she knows would be wearing orange.  Hinata can feel a warm rush of blood rise to her face which intensifies when she realizes the object of her desire is gently holding onto her shoulders.

"Na-Naruto-kun?  Are you alright?"

Hinata brings herself to a sitting position while Naruto replies.

"Eh?  What?  Why wouldn't I be?"  The quizzical expression on the boy's face gives Hinata the opinion that he doesn't know exactly how critical his situation is.

"Umm, Naruto-kun, do you mind if I look at your wound please?"

The blonde ninja raises an eyebrow.  "Oh, this?"  Naruto raises his shirt over his belly, allowing Hinata to look at the bandage.  She gingerly begins to lift up the bandage, trying not to irritate the bruise… and finds that there is no bruising anymore.  Hinata begins to blush in embarrassment.

"Umm…  I could have sworn you had a bruise there…  But it seems to have been gone now.  And you were also bleeding internally…"

Naruto looks into Hinata's face, and despite the time being slightly past midnight he can immediately pick the mixture of concern and bewilderment on her face.  He begins to chuckle quietly, and act which causes Hinata to blush more and lower her face to cover it.

"I am the great ninja Naruto, after all.  It's only to be expected that I can recover from hits like that one in no time at all."

He suddenly brings his face close to Hinata's ear and whispers in it…  "But check me for internal bleeding now anyway, I don't want to drop dead while we're on the move."

The team begins their final trek through the woods, and under the cover of darkness they make it to the fortress without running into any hindrances.  Eventually Sasuke calls the group to a stop about a hundred metres away, where the thick forest gives way to an open plain.

"Any ideas for covering this open ground?"  The Uchiha chuunin enquires of his group.

"Of course," replies Sakura with a grin.  She withdraws two kunais as well as two explosive tags.  She swiftly attaches the tags to the kunais and with a chakra enhanced arm, hurls them far away.  Everyone watches as the kunais arc into the forest several hundred metres around from them and Sakura grins when she sees them disappear from view.

"When I set those off, we make a quick dash for the moat.  Sound good?"

Sasuke nods and Sakura pulls another item from her pouch.  Upon close inspection by Sasuke, it appears to be a flashbomb of some sort.

It figures.  I bet she's had this part planned all along.  At least one of us can think that far ahead.

Sakura launches the flashbomb along the same path as the two kunais, and the entire group readies themselves for their flight to the moat.  The flashbomb reaches the top of its arc and the four children tense.  It seems to take an eternity for the object to drop…

It enters the undergrowth with an almost silent rustle…

… And collides with one of the previously thrown kunai.  Almost instantaneously, the flashbomb and the explosive tag ignite, setting off the second tag.  The immediate area becomes a place of light and chaos, drawing every eye in the castle for a precious few seconds.  Already the leaf ninjas are making their way quickly and efficiently towards the castle, with only one mind not one hundred percent devoted to the task of making it to the moat unseen.

What happened to Naruto-kun's injuries?  It's like they were never there at all…


	6. Keyless entry

A/N – Thanks Xoni for the constructive review.  Regarding the warlord and his ninja, my reasoning was that Tsuande kind of figured that since a high level ninja was killed, they had destroyed his ninja reserve, as I'm going to assume hiring jounin level missing-nins costs a bit of money.  And with the dogs bit, just assume a chakra jump was made :)  But now I'm trying to keep my eye out for little discrepancies like that, so thanks.

Chapter 6

            As Sakura's flashbomb ignites on its intended target, she quickly hisses for everyone to get moving.  The other members of her group have little need for her encouragement as they have already left their respective branches and are falling towards the ground.  Sakura doesn't waste time shrugging and leaps off after them.  Within microseconds, all pairs of feet have hit the ground and are making their way in a wide pattern towards the moat of the castle, covered by the confusion created by Sakura's diversion.

            As the young ninjas silently dive into the moat, the sole person to notice their approach turns away from his window and back to a study desk, upon which sits a large amount of paper work.  The dark figure grins.  "Interesting."

            "Oi, Hinata," whispers Naruto in a voice designed to carry, "where's the way into this stupid castle?"

            Instead of Hinata's soft voice floating back with a response, Naruto recognizes the harsh tones of Sasuke, trying to keep quiet.  "Shut up you idiot, you'll let them know we're here!"

            Hinata takes her turn to reply.  "Not too far, there should be some kind of removable grate around here."

            "Should be?"  Once again, Sasuke.

            A dull thunk resonates around the young ninjas.

            "Owww…" Moans Naruto, clutching at his forehead.  "I think I found it."

            Sakura, being the closest to Naruto at that particular point in time, moves in and spots the object that halted Naruto's progress in the completely random direction he was moving in.  Sure enough, it's some kind of grate and even better for the infiltrating team, it's on a set of hinges.  While Naruto is trying to silently thrash around under the pretense of clutching the bump on his head, Sakura efficiently removes a lockpick from her backpack and eliminates a hefty padlock from the picture.

            The three 'uninjured' shinobis move through the opening, and Sasuke sees fit to throw a verbal barb at Naruto on the way past.

            "You want us to get caught, don't you?  So you can summon your stupid toad, right?  Pfft."

            Naruto responds quickly.  "Come on, like I'd deliberately try to ruin our awesome plan."  Despite his words however, Naruto finds himself conducting a thorough analysis of the water around his feet.  Sasuke grunts and enters the tunnel.  From in front of him, Hinata's muffled giggles echo almost soundlessly towards the two boys.

            "Hyuuga, shut up!"  Sasuke whispers harshly.  "You'll only encourage the moron."

            Hinata instinctively brings her hands to her mouth and blushes slightly.  "Sorry."

            Sasuke shakes his head and the four ninjas continue to wade through the tunnel.  Soon two pinpoints of hazy orange light come into view and Sasuke motions the group to sit still.  Garbled echoes of voices filter up the tunnel and the group spend what seems like an eternity listening to the fractured echoes before Sasuke comes to a decision.    

            "Sakura.  Hyuuga.  It seems like there are two guards up there."  Hinata nods her head without thinking – she'd already taken a quick peek with her Byakugan technique.  "Get up there underwater and take them out any way you can.  Once that's done, extinguish one torch so Naruto and I know when to follow."

            Sakura nods and silently sinks below the surface of the water.  Seconds later Hinata follows and the pair glide off underwater like a well trained pair of synchronized swimmers.  Naruto follows their progress until he can no longer distinguish the dark blobs that mark their position underwater.

            "So why them instead of us Sasuke?"

            "Use your head, idiot.  We still need to recover our chakra and they can take care of two goons as well as we could anyway."

            Naruto shrugs, well aware of the need not to lose his cool and become overly loud.  Instead he turns his attention back up the tunnel and leans against the wall.

            Meanwhile, Sakura and Hinata have closed the gap nicely underwater.  Hinata glances sideways at Sakura, who is finishing off a seal.  With a weird *glub* sound, Sakura finishes off the seal and grins sideways at Hinata.  On the water's surface, their shadows disappear.  Hinata engages her byakugan underwater and easily spots the location of the two guards on the landing.  She points in their general direction and Sakura nods.  They glide quietly to the edge of the water and Sakura begins a countdown with her fingers.

            As soon as the last finger drops, both girls explode from the water, high into the air.  The surprised guards have next to no time to react as one female ninja drops onto each of them.  As Sakura drops onto her guard, she swings her foot around in a violent arc that ends in the young man's neck.  A sort of crackling sound emanates from the impact area and the man is forcefully flung to one side by the force of the kick.  He drops quickly.  Hinata, on the other hand, comes down head first, hands out.  She grabs the other guard's shoulders and uses him as a sort of vault to flip over his head.  Thanks to some gentle fist trick, he sighs and collapses before Hinata's feet hit the ground.

After a quick examination to determine approximately how long the guards will be out for, Sakura quickly extinguishes one torch.  While Hinata is in the process of dragging the guards into some deep shadows, Naruto and Sasuke emerge from the water quietly and observe their location.

            "Hmm…" Sasuke begins as he looks around.  "This appears to be a wine cellar." 

            Hinata nods.  "Umm… the staircase leads to the kitchen, there are probably some off duty guards there…"

            Sasuke nods and begins to move quietly up the stairway, his team members following silently behind.  They quickly reach the top of the stairs, where a thick wooden door momentarily blocks their progress.  Sasuke points at his eyes, then Hinata, then the door.  Hinata nods, and almost inaudibly runs through the seals to activate her Byakugan.  The white eyed Hyuuga girl turns around and raises one finger.  Naruto grins.

            "Let me get him," he whispers.  Sasuke nods and steps back a bit into the darkness and Sakura follows.  Hinata looks torn for a second, then follows the others.

            Naruto ponderously kicks the door with his foot.  Inside the kitchen, the solitary goon browsing the contents of the pantry turns his head.  From behind the cellar door a dulled voice can be heard.

            "Hey!  Anyone in there?  Can you open this door so we can get this oak barrel out of here?"

            The guard is instantly suspicious and his eyes narrow oh so slightly.  "Why are you moving an empty cask?"

            "Oh come on, you know what kind of pointless crap the men upstairs get us to do when we're on back shift."

            The guard shrugs.  That was a fairly legitimate answer and it's not like the cellars would be harboring any intruders.  Hell, as far as he knew, it was a dead end.  By now he's made it to the door and upon giving it a big yank open, finds himself staring at nothing but darkness.

            "Huh?"

            That's the last thing he'll get out of his mouth for quite a while however, as something has just landed heavily on his neck.  Under the weight, he falls to his knees, and something that feels like pair of hands guides his forehead quickly into the floor.

            Naruto unceremoniously kicks the guard for good measure, then turns him around to examine his face.  Blood flows from a medium sized split in his forehead and along with flows from the nostrils and corner of his mouth, makes for a fairly impressive sight.

            "Ah, he'll live."

            Naruto's three teammates emerge from the shadows and the group quickly move into the kitchen, making sure to close and lock the cellar door.  Hinata looks around quickly, trying to orientate herself.  She quickly does and motions for the group to follow her.  Naruto grins.

            "Not so fast.  What are we going to do if we run into any patrolling guards?"

            Hinata blushes out of sheer embarrassment.  It's not often she makes a simple mistake like that and she feels really bad.  Hinata turns away slightly, bringing her fingers to her face and tapping them together nervously.

            "Sorry…"

            "Don't be.  It's good that you're getting more confident, but just don't get too headstrong or you'll show me up."  Naruto finishes off with a big grin.

            "I don't think anyone could do that," Sakura mutters under her breath.  Inwardly, Sasuke agrees.

            Naruto-kun… noticed that I'm becoming more confident?  I must be changing myself… and it feels good too

            Hinata just nods and mumbles a quick word of thanks to Naruto.  Sakura, with kunai in hand and eyes on the door, makes a fairly sensible suggestion.

            "Let's just move carefully through the castle and I'll use some genjutsu to make us blend in with the background from a distance.  That should give us enough time to hide when we spot someone."

            Sasuke nods.  "Good idea, lets go."

            Sakura moves her hands through a four seal set, and the upon completion the ninja's begin to notice a slight tingly sensation all over their skin.  Naruto looks up at Sasuke and notices the edges of his clothing becoming slightly blurry.  He can still quite easily see his companion though, and this bothers him quite a lot.

            "Hey hey, I thought this was going to make us invisible or something!"

            "That's too difficult for me to use while we're on the move.  Like I said it'll make us harder to spot from a distance, by blurring our outlines into the background.  Also, as we move we've got to stick together as the area of effect is centered around me."

            Sasuke once again indicates his approval with a mere nod of the head.  While Naruto is poking around for a few snacks in the giant pantries, Sasuke comes up with the team order.

            "Hyuuga, you lead.  You know the way and can check around corners with your eyes.  Naruto, you go second so if we get caught from either direction you can respond with shadow clones.  Sakura, you go third to be towards the centre of the group and I'll cover us."

            And so the ninjas move through the main kitchen door in the order described by Sasuke, with Naruto's pockets bulging pockets full of all sorts of edible odds and ends.  The group stealthily make their way through the castle, trying to avoid guards where they can, and thanks to Hinata's byakugan manage to work their way around the guards until they reach a spiral staircase that leads up a parapet to the second level of the castle.

            Halfway up the staircase, Hinata quickly activates her byakugan for a quick peek at the situation at the top of the staircase and is very much dismayed to spot two guards making their way down the narrow staircase.

            "Guards!"  The young Hyuuga girl whispers in a panicked voice back towards the group.  Naruto quickly responds by bringing his hands together in front of his nose.

            "Henge!"

            Naruto suddenly disappears and a window appears on the wall, including a nice backdrop of the night sky.  Sakura quickly catches on and within the blink of an eye has disappeared, and an unobtrusive windowsill appears under the window.  Sasuke transforms himself into a pair of black curtains, which leaves Hinata desperately out of ideas and the guards about to round the curve in the stairs.  Desperately she brings her arms together and the panic disappears from her eyes a split second before she disappears in a puff of smoke.  A lovely pot plant appears on the sill, rounding out the window nicely.

            The guards round the corner.  Just as they reach the window, one of the guards tenses and finally appears to notice the ninjas in disguise.

            "Hey, this window wasn't here last time," he mentions to his comrade.  Within his wooden form, Naruto prepares to pounce…

            "It's about time they got around to putting this thing in.  The other stairs have had their windows for at least a week now."  The guard finishes off.  Behind the Sasuke-curtains, a large sweatdrop appears on a pane.

            "Yeah," responds the other guard as he leans on the window sill and stares out at the 'night sky'.  Blissfully unaware that it's all a carefully constructed illusion, he comments "It's beautiful."

            Meanwhile, Sakura is having second thoughts about her transformation choice.

            Ewww!  Get off me, get off me, get off me!  You wear waaay to much cologne!  It stinks!

            The first guard places his hand on his comrade's shoulder.  "It's not as beautiful as you though," he says, with no hint of sarcasm in his voice.

            The other guard responds playfully.  "Hey you!  No funny stuff until shift change.  Can't you wait twenty minutes?"  

            One thought runs simultaneously through four Leaf minds at that exact point in time.  

            GROSS!!

            The guards leave, but just before they round the corner one takes the opportunity to slap the other guy on the butt.  After Hinata is sure they're out of range, she releases the Henge.  Seconds later, the others follow suit.  Sakura desperately starts scrubbing at her forearm, her inner self having gotten the better of her for a short while.

            "Gah!  I swear some of that cologne wore off on me!  It stinks!"

            Sakura stops for a second and sniffs her arm suspiciously, then quickly resumes the scrubbing.

            Meanwhile, Naruto is clutching at his head, in a vain attempt to permanently remove the last few minutes from his memory.  He's stuck in his own little world, dancing around and muttering under his breath about basic background checks for guards.  Even Sasuke looks slightly woozy.  Hinata merely looks a little confused over Naruto's overreaction to events.

            Sasuke quickly recovers.  "That guard mentioned shift change in twenty minutes.  It might be an idea to jump the guards who are going to change at the main chambers.  Then we can pose as them and kill the guy while he's sleeping."

            Hinata nods.  "T-That's probably a good idea, Sasuke-san.  We're only five minutes away from the chambers," Hinata offers quietly.

            Naruto stops mumbling and a broad grin stretches across his features.

            "Well then, lets go!"  Naruto says, with a voice bordering on shouting.

            "Shut up moron."

            The group quickly climb the rest of the staircase, and Hinata quietly guides them without incident to a large gaudy doorway.  The young Hyuuga activates her byakugan eyes and stares through the door for a few seconds.

            "The place is through the large chamber in here.  There are three guards," she whispers.  Sasuke nods.

            "We'll just hide here and wait for the replacement guards to arrive.  They must be taken down quietly.  And I mean it Naruto."

            "Yeah yeah, whatever."

            A quick scan of the surroundings reveals very few places to hide.  The area is well illuminated and there are no convenient smaller side hallways to launch a surprise attack.  Once these facts have been established, Sakura offers a solution.

            "How about we crouch in front of the door, and I'll use a genjutsu to make us appear invisible?  Then when the guards get close we can knock them out."

            Sasuke nods, and motions them to the door, where all four huddle up as close as possible.  Sakura quickly explains that she can only hold the genjutsu for a minute at the most when she has to cover the area the four leaf nins occupy, and that any movement from inside will automatically dispel it.  Hinata agrees to use her byakugan to spot the guards before they arrive, thus the almighty 'beat up a bunch of stupid guards' plan was put into effect, and the wait began.

            Not too much later, Hinata quietly raised her hand.  Sakura immediately began a chain of seals and finished off by releasing some chakra.  A trio of nondescript guards appear from a connecting passageway to the left and begin marching towards the door.  Apparently the genjutsu that Sakura is maintaining works, as none of the guards raise any sort of alarm.  When they reach arm distance, Naruto leaps forward breaking the genjutsu.

            The guards are obviously startled as four children appear out of seemingly thin air.  They have no time to express their surprise however, as three of the children have already clamped their mouths shut.  In their last moments of sheer panic before the uncomfortable darkness of unconsciousness overtakes them, they observe a purple haired girl moving with great alacrity moving through their ranks, laying a hand of each of them in turn.

            Hinata quickly ties up the guards while the others perform transformations to assume the incapacitated guards' identities.  Although the young nins plan to knock out the guards still in the antechamber, it's better to be safe than sorry so they leave Hinata to shift the unconscious guards somewhere a bit less conspicuous while the transformed Naruto throws open the door and strides in.

            To be concluded…

A/N – You may notice that the writing quality dropped towards the end of that chapter, I've had it sitting here for about two weeks without an end and figured that bugger it, I just want to get it finished.  Expect the final chapter in say, a month or two :p


	7. Goodbye and goodnight

A/N – Well I've finally gotten around to finishing this off. At the end of chapter 6 I said I'd take a month or two. It's almost been five months now, but here's the ending.

Chapter 7

* * *

Naruto throws the door open and immediately begins to take in the surroundings. The three leaf ninjas find themselves in a large, expensively decorated chamber of sorts. Two sets of marble pillars flank a thick red carpet that cuts a straight path through the middle of the room. Towards the back of the chamber are two or three steps, putting the rear of the chamber on a higher level than the front. Several oil paintings line the walls and the red carpet leads through to a relatively small door at the back of the chamber.

The whole setup reminds Sakura of the audience chamber of some kind of western palace. In front of the little door are three guards standing at attention wearing the same uniforms as the ones 'appropriated' by Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. The three young shinobi march stiffly up to the guards on duty.

"Good job guys, grab some sleep," Naruto says, his voice and actions not betraying the laughter he's desperately holding inside.

"Have a good one," the lead guard replies and as one man, the guards salute the three leaf ninjas. Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura salute back, and the now off duty and soon be unconscious guards begin make their way past the ninjas. Soon to be unconscious because as they pass by the disguised children, they each receive a quick backhand in the back of the neck. As a result of their treatment, the guards collapse with nary a sigh.

"Too easy," says the blonde ninja with a broad grin as he dispels his henge in the traditional puff of smoke. Sakura and Sasuke follow suit.

"I don't suppose you'd keep your whining quiet for a while?" Shoots back Sasuke, in a low voice. Naruto glowers and opens his mouth to deliver his rebuttal but fails to get any words out before Sakura manages to clamp both her hands around it.

"Not now Naruto! Let's finish the mission first," the pink haired shinobi hisses. Slowly Naruto's red face returns to normal and Sakura releases her grip. Now suitably calmed, Naruto nods to Sasuke, who's been holding his hand over the door handle for a few second now. The Uchiha prodigy lowers his hand…

And the door handle turns with no apparent physical input. The three ninja's leap backwards, hands diving into weapon pouches.

Meanwhile, the blue haired heir of the Hyuga is searching for a suitable hiding spot for the unconscious bodies she's dragging along behind her. Looking up, she takes note of several wooden braces running above her head - apparently the construction of the castle hasn't been completely finished yet. Using a little bit of chakra to assist herself, she leaps up into the bracing and quickly ties the unconscious guards down. As she drops silently back to the ground, a muffled thump from the antechamber earns her attention. Hinata quickly activates her byakugan jutsu and peers through the closed door.

The sight she is greeted with is definitely not one she expected to see. An overly large person is standing in the far doorway and six inanimate figures, three of which have Konoha headbands, are lying on the ground. As Hinata stares, her heart rate increases and tiny beads of sweat begin to form on her forehead. Panic begins to sweep through the normally calm and collected mind of Hyuga Hinata.

_He incapacitated Sasuke-san, Sakura-san and Naruto-kun in one move!_ Hinata's breathing becomes ragged as she continues to think to herself. _What should I do? I should… I need to rescue them. But how? Should I wait?_

Thousands of thoughts fly through Hinata's head as she grapples with her options.

_Yes. I should wait. He doesn't know that there's more of us. He's way too… He's obviously too powerful for me to fight anyway._

The sweat begins to collect on her forehead now, and her palms become greasy from sweat. As the white eyed ninja prepares to get back into the ceiling braces, movement inside the room halts her motion and causes her eyes to widen in panic.

_I am stupid!_ Hinata mentally curses herself as the figure begins to move towards one the prone leaf shinobi. _Why did I think he was going to leave them alone?_ Hinata forces herself to calm down and her short ragged breaths become longer and steadier. Quickly formulating a plan, she reaches into her equipment pouch with a shaking hand.

With one last deep breath, Hinata forces the door open and barges into the antechamber. Before the unknown opponent can react to her presence, she brings both hands together in a simple seal and releases her chakra. "Bunshin no jutsu!"

With five bunshins running interference alongside herself, Hinata raises her arm and hurls a smoke bomb between her new opponent and the prone forms of Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura. With her byakugan, Hinata can still clearly see her opponent and is silently relieved when it apparently stops in confusion.

"Ah yes," booms the voice of her opponent. "I was wondering if the fourth member of this pathetic assassination squad would show it's face soon."

Hinata ignores this and continues to move towards her teammates, with her clones fanning out until they're evenly spread along the width of the room and keeping pace with her. Just as she reaches the point where Sakura is lying on the ground, still breathing but unconscious, her byakugan eyes warn her of a massive surge of chakra through her opponent's chakra system. Hinata stares for a second, amazed at the size of the swelling pathways.

"Your little smoke trick won't work on me! Have some of this!" Hinata watches through the smoke as the person crosses his arms in front of his chest and swings them out wide. As he does, Hinata's attention shifts from the actual arms themselves to the huge wave of normally invisible chakra that has flown out from them. If not for her blood limit, Hinata realizes that she would not have stood a chance against this technique. As it is, she finds it hard to prepare a defence against such an enormous flow of energy. Gathering as much chakra in her hands as she possibly can, Hinata lunges forward with both palms extended, attempting to expel as much chakra in front of her as she possibly can.

As the wave makes contact with her palms, the blue haired ninja screams in pain, but fortunately for her the chakra wave breaks on her palms like a wave breaking on a rock. As the rest of the energy sweeps past, it blows away the smoke from the smoke bomb and easily dispels her bunshins. Hinata shifts her weight onto her back foot and her shoulders slouch. The blue haired shinobi's shoulders rise and fall noticeably as she takes several deep breaths.

"Impressive," thunders the voice of Hinata's opponent. "Your friends fell far too easily to that technique."

"Wh-Who… are… you?" Hinata replies though desperate gasps for air.

"Ahh, how forgetful of me. I am Shigeru Shinbo." Shinbo pauses for a second and cocks his head thoughtfully. "Well I do believe that that was your last request."

With that, Shinbo crosses his arms in front of his chest and Hinata spots the tell tale pumping up of his chakra pathways. Hinata automatically stops her heavy breathing and slides into a gentle fist stance. Feeling slightly more prepared this time, she begins to channel chakra into her hand. Shinbo stares quizzically at her for a second and then chuckles.

"Dear me. I had almost forgotten that this little trick won't work on you. Well now I guess that I get to use a different technique now. Perhaps you will provide me with a bit more entertainment than your friends." Shinbo grins and lowers his crossed arms slowly.

Hinata's byakugan reveals to her an incredibly amazing scene. Shinbo's chakra pathways, rather than shrinking back to their normal size, continue to widen. Hinata gulps and shifts her stance slightly as her opponent begins to grow in size, easily doubling his initial size in ten seconds and still continuing to grow.

_What is this thing?_ Hinata retains her slightly nervous face as thoughts churn through her mind. She had seen members of the Akimichi clan in action before, but none of their multisize jutsus ever involved increasing the chakra pathways and hence chakra flow. Rather they converted spare chakra into body mass. This increased chakra flow throughout the body of her opponent as well as the extra body mass acquired was going to make this fight incredibly difficult, Hinata realized. And on top of that, she still had to save the rest of her team.

As Shinbo's growth slowed, Hinata judged that he was going to end up two and a half times bigger than he started. _The size of his chakra pathways is not good. They're as thick as a finger!_

"Come on, little lady. I'll let you have the first strike free," booms Shinbo, before he lets out a loud gaffaw. "Right here!" He bangs one fist on his chest and grins. Hinata sizes up the situation.

_One direct hit with the gentle fist over the heart is all it takes to kill a person. I'll take this opportunity._

Having made up her mind, Hinata races towards the overly large Shinbo, her hands held at the ready. As she closes within his arm reach, the grin on the warlord's face widens and he lashes out with an incredibly fast fist. Hinata, having anticipated trickery however, reacts even faster and drops low to slide the remaining metre or so to bring her in reach of her opponent's torso. With her left arm held out in a protective manner, Hinata thrusts her whole body upwards on a forty-five degree angle, and shoves her open palm right into the upper ribcage of her opponent, who is looking somewhat shocked at this turn of events. Upon contact, Hinata forces her built up chakra out through her palm.

The young woman is rewarded with a staggering cough from her opponent. Hinata coils her leg muscles to leap out of range when suddenly Shinbo's mouth opens.

"That tickled missy," he whispers menacingly. With that, the clenched left fist of Shinbo swings around like a snake and collects Hinata in the lower right ribcage. Hinata feels at least one rib cracking before the transferred momentum slings her across the floor and into a pillar.

_Did he not even feel that strike?_ The Hyuga girl ponders as she groggily drags herself upright. As she stares back at her grinning opponent she realizes why. The gentle fist, while extremely damaging, relies on the disrupting the chakra flow of the opponent.

_The amount of chakra I can use in my gentle fist technique is not going to be able to disrupt any of his larger chakra pathways._ Hinata nervousness begins to increase again, and the physical signs of the emotion begin to appear. Still, she raises her hands back into the gentle fist stance, ignoring the blood that is slowly trickling out of her mouth.

The warlord roars in laughter. "You still want to fight?" Shinbo grins and rushes in at Hinata. She barely manages to dodge his first strike and as a result of being forced off balance easily has her legs swept out from underneath herself. Shinbo looks down menacingly and begins to speak.

"I hope you aren't relying on your friends to wake up and help you. The technique that you managed to counter overloads the chakra pathways and causes internal damage when the pathways begin to leak. They won't be waking up for a good six hours or so, and even then, they'll hardly be in a state to help you," he gloats. "Not that it matters. Goodbye." The oversized Shinbo brings a gigantic foot down towards Hinata, who quickly rolls out of the way and taps the calf of the giant as she rolls back to her feet. This has little effect however - it merely causes him to pause for a second.

Meanwhile, on the floor, despite Shinbo's previous claim, a certain blonde haired leaf chuunin groggily opens his eyelids and displays a pair of unfocused blue eyes to the world. Unable to move the rest of his body, his glazed and uncomprehending eyes stare towards the fight. Through a foggy veil of concussion, Naruto slowly comes to the realization that one of his teammates is attempting to fight some sort of giant. And is taking a lot of hits as well.

"Hi…na…ta?" Naruto seems to have regained use of his mouth, although it appears his mind is still cloudy. As he watches Hinata take yet another punch to the stomach, his fingers slowly begin to clench into fists. "Hi…na…ta," he repeats, again without much understanding but a much stronger voice.

Hinata struggles to her feet for the fourth time in as many minutes and comes to the conclusion that she's drawn Shinbo far enough away from her teammates and more importantly, Naruto-kun. As Shinbo closes in on her yet again, she attempts to dart past him towards the prone leaf ninjas. Her speed seems impossible given the injuries she is carrying, yet it's still not fast enough. Shinbo grins and lashes out with a backhand which catches the young Hyuga in the back of the head and sends her flying headfirst past the group she was trying to reach.

"Did you really think I hadn't seen through your pathetic little plan?" laughs the giant Shinbo. As Naruto watches this happen, a ray of thought pierces the fog in his mind.

_Hinata__! No!_

Suddenly the body which he could not move, and the mind which he could not control worked themselves into action. __

The young Hyuga heir braced herself for a head on collision with the marble wall of the antechamber, an impact which she realized would probably drop her firstly into the world of unconsciousness and then into death. _I'm sorry Naruto-kun._ As Hinata feels herself collide, she instantly tenses up. Then a split second later confusion invades her mind. Whatever she's collided into isn't quite as hard as a marble wall and her forward motion hasn't stopped. Opening her eyes, she looks up into the face of the person she was silently apologizing to milliseconds earlier. Naruto throws his arms around the back of the white eyed girl and latches on tight as he struggles to kill their momentum before colliding into the wall.

Sparks fly from blue sandals as the blonde ninja tries to grip onto the floor using chakra. Eventually the struggling leaf chuunin brings himself and Hinata to a halt and falls over backwards, landing in a sitting position. He is slightly surprised to find Hinata's face buried in his chest, but shrugs it off as a result of their sudden deceleration. It is when the girl haltingly pulls her head back to look at his face that he double takes. Hinata's bloodied face looks up at his with tears in her eyes. Naruto takes a split second to assess her injuries and is horrified at the extent of them. He can see several dark patches of blood staining her jacket, the uncovered areas of her legs are showing huge purple bruises, blood is slowly bubbling out of her mouth with every breath and several cuts on her face a leaking blood. Regardless, the heir of the Hyuga clan, arguably the Leaf's strongest clan, opened her mouth to speak.

"N-Naruto-kun, I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice dry and hoarse. "I couldn't save everyone." Naruto looks directly into her face, amazed that she can still speak after the punishment she's taken.

"Don't be sorry. You bought enough time for me to recover. And now I'll kick his sorry butt for doing this!"

Hinata smiles weakly. The conviction in his voice makes Hinata feel better, despite, or maybe due to, her lack of blood. Riding on a high of courage mixed with adrenaline, she opens her mouth. "N-Naruto-kun," she manages to get out, "I really… really like… you. Will y… you go out… with me?"

Naruto's eyes glazed over in shock. Although he liked the girl in front of him in his own way, this seemed really stupidly sudden to him. He didn't know she liked him enough to ask him out… After almost dying to save him and his team… Naruto began to realize how thick he really was.

Naruto's eyes focused again and he made a gentle sound of assent while nodding his head. Hinata sighed and struggled to bring her head up to his. Upon completion of her task, she swayed forwards and let her lips brush against his, a small cough transferring some red liquid from her mouth onto his lips, and then her head fell limp on his shoulder, unconscious. Naruto's eyes glazed over yet again as he tried to remember all the times he had talked to or even seen Hinata.

If he didn't count the chuunin exam, he only had memories of her at the academy, where she had been quiet and timid. She was beginning to show an adventurous streak now, but was still fairly quiet. Come to think of it, on his first day at the academy, she was the only one to not have a dig at him in some way. He wondered if it was because of her nature or something else.

As the blonde haired ninja gently laid the unconscious form of Hinata face up on the ground, he wondered how his life was going to change with a girlfriend. Naruto knew one thing though, he was willing to put his all into it. To do otherwise would simply be against the nature of the great Uzamaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konoha.

"Ahem? I hate to interrupt…"

_But first…___

Naruto stands up slowly, while licking Hinata's blood from his lips. "Let me tell you something," Naruto growls, his tone laden with anger. "I'm going to finish you off in a minute. I suggest you don't touch my friends, especially this one, or you will die instantly."

Shinbo grins. "Trying to protect your girlfriend eh? First of all boy, as well as commanding this army, I'm a warlock. I borrow power from all sorts of demons. Right now I'm more powerful than you can imagine. In exchange for this power, all I need to do is crush Konoha. I don't know how you managed to get up so quickly after my chakra wave, but it's irrelevant. You are an insect to me."

Naruto's eyes narrow as he spits out his reply. "First of all, you bastard, she's not my girlfriend. Yet. At the moment Hinata is important to me because she was the first person to recognize me, and I was an idiot for not noticing it. Secondly, get bent."

Shinbo closes his eyes and crosses his arms in front of his chest. In response, Naruto brings his hands in front of his chest and forms the tiger seal. Red chakra begins to swirl around the human container of the demon nine tails fox and slowly collects to form a fiery aura. At the same time as Naruto releases his seal with a yell, the oversized warlock swings his arms wide apart. If Naruto had byakugan eyes, he would have seen a wave of chakra at least twice as dense as the one the Hinata faced several minutes ago. However, lacking those eyes, Naruto simply waits to see what happens.

When the wave reaches the blonde haired ninja, his red aura flares up silently for a second, and then returns to normal.

"What?!" thunders Shinbo as his wave shatters upon the chakra of the kyuubi. "Take this!" The warlock rushes in, throwing a blindingly fast fist towards Naruto. The ninja dodges with apparent easy, and continues to dodge easily as Shinbo attempts to bury Naruto in a flurry of closed fist and foot strikes.

"What are you!?" roars the giant in frustration as he continually fails to land hits on the blonde chuunin of the leaf. Naruto grins while dodging a veritable hailstorm of blows. "Mister warlock, I'm the human container for the nine tails fox demon. As much as I don't like assassinations, this is personal now. And your minute is up."

Naruto ducks back out of range and brings his hands in front of his face in the all to familiar crossed finger pose. It takes the young ninja the merest fraction of a second to mould the required chakra and he promptly releases it.

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

In an explosion of billowing smoke, seven clones appear around Naruto. Shinbo, now looking incredibly frightened, is surrounded in a blink of an eye by six of the clones. Naruto holds out his right hand to the remaining clone, who begins to thrust his hands in and out around it. Meanwhile, the other shadow clones have begun their assault on the oversized warlock.

"U… za… ma… ki!" Three of the clones have just levered the giant into the air with the use of three blue sandals to the lower torso. The other three clones leap into the air after Shinbo.

"Naruto!" Courtesy of a fist to the back of the head from each of the airborne clones, the giant is launched towards the real Naruto, whose right hand contains a glowing red ball of spinning chakra.

"Rasengan rendan!" Naruto is slung directly towards the incoming mass by the bunshin he used to create the rasengan. As both warriors move on their collision course, Naruto brings his right hand around and drives the churning ball of energy straight into head of Shinbo.

As Naruto lands, all his shadow clones disappear in a cloud of smoke and he smiles as the headless body of Shinbo lands on the ground, slowly shrinking back to it's normal size. The young ninja then swallows, the coppery taste of Hinata's blood lingering on his tongue for a few seconds after the actual liquid has passed down his throat. Naruto breaks out in a foxy grin as the red aura fades and dies.

"Mission accomplished."

* * *

A/N – Woo! Done. There'll be a short epilogue up when I feel like getting it done, but this is pretty much it. I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone who read it and a bigger thanks to everyone who reviewed it. I'll probably go through the whole thing at some stage as well and fix up some formatting errors etc, but once again I'm incredibly lazy, so don't expect it to happen in the near future, just in case you really care :p

Once again, thanks for reading and I really hope you enjoyed it, this whole thing has been an experience for me.


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